Linux PVR

[Brad]

On Thu, 2004-12-23 at 14:25 -0600, Jonathan Hutchins wrote:
> On Thursday 23 December 2004 12:22 pm, Brad wrote:
> 
> > I have a MythTV box about 90% functional.  I am just working through
> > getting the IR receiver and serial port control of my cable box going.
> > MyhtTV is a really nice setup.  I built it on Fedora Core 3 and followed
> > Jarod Wilson's guide at http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/fcmyth.php.  Let me
> > know if you need more information.
> 
> What hardware are you using?  Is the serial port control an alternative to 
> using an IR transmitter from the PC to control the cable box?  Any particular 
> challanges?
> 
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-- 

I am using a Celeron 2.4 Gig CPU, Audigy 2 sound card, GForce 4 video
card for TV out and a PVR250 for capture.  This is all standard hardware
and recommended by Jarod's how-to.  Since it is not fully functional yet
I am still testing with coax into the tuner card, but will switch that
to RCA for better quality signal when it goes 'live' (the box has to be
wife-friendly before it can be used :) ).    

Yes, serial port control of the cable box is an alternative to an IR
blaster which is slow.  Whether or not you can do this depends upon the
model of your cable box and whether or not the cable company has the
serial port active.  I have a motorola dc2xxx series and depending upon
the firmware, these may or may not work. 

I plan on converting this box to a dedicated backend with another
capture card to grab signal from another cable box and then have a
frontend with multiple TV out cards to feed two TV's.  That way I can
either watch 2 separate shows on 2 different TV's or watch one show and
record another.

MythTV  also has a module for your phone so CID pops up, has built in
VOIP capabilities, weather, news, DVD's, music, games, and some sort of
Xbox interface that I have not yet played with.

Brad